


The List - 14x04 Coda

by Flurry_X



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Disney Movies, During Canon, Episode s14e04 coda, Family Bonding, Feelings, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Longing, M/M, Movie Night, POV Castiel (Supernatural), mint condition coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 02:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18983143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flurry_X/pseuds/Flurry_X
Summary: "And then Dean starts disappearing.He doesn’t, not really; Castiel can still feel his uneasy, ruffled presence in the halls of the bunker. But he disappears from sight, becomes a slippery shadow Castiel can’t ever quite manage to catch.Sometimes, usually when it’s late in the evening and the faces around him are all of strangers, he feels as if Dean is still gone, and the ache in his chest burns so viciously he feels like he might be sick."---14x04 Coda - "Mint condition"Cas POVWhat happened that week Dean spent holed up in his room watching movies





	The List - 14x04 Coda

**Author's Note:**

> I watched "Mint Condition" and loved it and couldn't stop thinking that *someone* must have bought Dean all those snacks since he wasn't leaving his room. Then this happened.  
> There's some angsty destiel and some family bonding and some Disney movies. Hope you enjoy! ❤
> 
> Infinite thanks to [Eyes_of_a_Tragedy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eyes_of_a_Tragedy) for being my beta on this and encouraging me to actually write it! You're the best!

There’s a list, tucked in Castiel’s pocket, safely shielded inside a corner of his mind he rarely lets himself look at. It’s a list of things he should have said when Dean came back to them, when Dean was finally Dean again.  
Things he wanted to say but didn’t have the courage to, and things he was supposed to say but forgot, stuck in that same boundless, endless loop he’s been in for ten years now.

_It’s not your fault._  
_Why did you say yes?_  
_What did he do to you?_  
_What did you see?_  
_It’s good to see you._

_I missed you._

_I want to touch you and remember you’re real._

The list is longer than he cares to admit, grows a little longer with each passing day and with every muted glance between them. He tries not to think about it too much. Sidesteps to the corners of his brain, sidesteps around Dean and the Micheal-shaped void in his mind.  
He’ll say those things, he figures, all in good time.

It doesn’t really help when they find the scar and Dean lets him peek inside his head. It’s a short, painful, vicious glance at everything Michael has done while wearing Dean’s face, and it makes him so angry he feels as if he might spill over. Suddenly there are a lot more questions added to his list, a whole, intricate mess of words he knows he’ll never get to say. They pile up in his throat and he wants to speak, wants to get some of them out, but he feels as if he’ll part his lips and it’ll all come spilling out, a rancid wave of all the things he’s been packing inside, all the words that went unspoken through the years.  
So he keeps quiet, fists clenched tight and eyes downcast. He lets Dean go look for the spear without crossing even one item off his list.

They’ll talk when Dean comes back, he tells himself, but he’s not quite foolish enough to believe it.

And then Dean starts disappearing.  
He doesn’t, not really; Castiel can still feel his uneasy, ruffled presence in the halls of the bunker. But he disappears from sight, becomes a slippery shadow Castiel can’t ever quite manage to catch.  
Sometimes, usually when it’s late in the evening and the faces around him are all of strangers, he feels as if Dean is still gone, and the ache in his chest burns so viciously he feels like he might be sick.

It takes three days before he snaps, three days of trying to catch up with Dean and being met with a quickly disappearing shadow that only barely even smells like him.  
He spends them with Jack, those three grey days. Because that’s what you do when you don’t really know what to do with the swirling thoughts inside your head, you go to your family.  
And it’s nice, it’s good, it’s useful. Jack needs him as much as he needs Jack, and the training gives them both a purpose. He’s kind of proud of himself for finding such a good distraction, but he should have known it wouldn’t last.

The first day goes fine. He catches a glimpse of Dean early in the morning, when he emerges from his room to get some coffee. His hair is messy and spiky again and the t-shirt he’s wearing has five little holes in the armpit seam, his bare toes poke pink from under his sweatpants and it pleases Castiel more than any discussion ever could. So he smiles at him when Dean grunts that he needs coffee and he doesn’t ask any of his questions.  
He spends the day teaching Jack some hand to hand combat and the way the kid smiles whenever Castiel manages to twist his body in an unexpected way is worth spending the day without seeing Dean again.

The second day he makes coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich because he knows Dean didn’t join the others for dinner the night before and he might be hungry. He’s not sure when he will wake up, Dean’s sleeping schedule always weird and hard to predict as it is.  
So Castiel ends up in the kitchen at 5am, sitting on a stool, with a fresh pot of coffee and a warm cheesy sandwich waiting on a plate.  
They both grow cold soon enough, and he doesn’t stop Sam when he asks if the sandwich is taken and thanks him for making coffee.  
It’s okay, he thinks, he knows for a fact that Dean has snacks in his room; he won’t go hungry, and maybe he needs the alone time to recover.  
It makes his insides burn icy cold to think about what must have happened, the things he must have seen, how they’re all locked inside his head because he’s not sharing them with anyone.

 _You can tell me, I know what it’s like_ ; he wants to say, _let me take some of the burden, let me make it easier_.  
But Dean doesn’t reach for him, so he figures he should keep to himself.

When Jack finds him in the kitchen, hours later, the coffee is gone and someone has used all the bread to make pb&j sandwiches for everyone. Even if Dean comes out, he’ll have nothing to offer him. He tells Jack they should hit the library, tells himself he’ll try again tomorrow.

The third day technically still is the second; it’s late at night, and Castiel is standing in front of Dean’s door. And he knows it’s on the wrong side of inappropriate, but he can’t really stop himself, worry and apprehension swirling messily in his gut, making him dizzy.  
There’s a low buzzing coming from inside the room, some movie where people are screaming and running, and below that there’s the faint rumble of Dean’s snores, steady and deep.  
He rests his forehead on the wooden door then, eyes closed even in the darkened hallway, just making himself breathe with the same slow rhythm of Dean’s sleep.  
It’s not perfect, it’s not talking, but it makes him feel a little less broken, a little less useless.  
Dean is fine, so he can be fine too.

He stands there, still like a statue, forehead pressed against the smooth wood of the door, a hand pressed over his chest, where it hurts, where it burns.  
It’s like a bruise in the molten center of his being, his longing for Dean.  
He feels its dull ache all the way through his chest, on his skin. It’s a present ache, knowing Dean is close, always so close and yet always out of his reach, fingertips straining towards him without ever being able to really touch; and it’s a past ache. It’s the memory of how it felt, wanting Dean, when he was human. It’s the constant, lingering feeling that there’s something more, something unsaid swirling in the dust around them. It’s knowing how intense that feeling had turned when he wasn’t an angel, how painful the pain had been and how deep the longing had reached when he didn’t have his angelic detachment to shield him from it.

He doesn’t miss being able to feel those things, not really, not most of the time. But there are moments still, quiet and lonely, like now, where he longs to remember. Remember how it felt to desire so strongly, to feel the want pulsating through his veins like a live, barbed thing. It hurt but it felt real, unquestionable, almost inevitable.  
It’s different now, as an angel again. It’s fuzzier, foggier, like the distant memory of how something used to taste when you were a child, something you can’t ever quite recall or recreate.

So he presses on the bruise sometimes, pokes at it through the walls of his mind, right where he knows it will hurt.  
The pain is always sharp, the want is always present, and it overtakes him in short, deep, jabs that leave him breathless for a moment. It’s in between the waves that he remembers, really remembers, how it felt like to love Dean Winchester, to want him, to hope he could one day have him.  
He drinks them down like an addict, loses himself into the fabricated memories, until logic creeps in again, and he tells himself that it’s better this way, it’s easier this way, and falls silent all over again.

He drops his hand from his chest when the burn starts to spill over into his throat, leaves the door cold and closed, Dean right behind it.

The calm doesn’t last. Come midday Dean still hasn’t emerged from his room and Castiel feels the frustration thrumming electric on his skin, prickly and sticky like sweat.  
He rifles through his brain trying to find a good excuse to go grab Dean and drag him out of the self-imposed isolation he seems to be sinking in. He considers just going to Sam and asking him, but he doesn’t want to be subjected to his soulful eyes, to the questions that they hold. Like Sam knows, has always known, what Castiel has always tried so hard to conceal.

It’s hard then to focus on Jack’s training, to teach and be reliable when all he can think about is that there are 78 steps between the library and Dean’s door and it would take him less than a minute to reach there and finally get to _see him_ for himself.

It’s Jack eventually, who gives him an excuse to go knock at Dean’s door without passing as the overly-attached, smothering friend he knows himself to be.  
“Dean just texted me,” he says, out of the blue, while they’re in the middle of discussing the pro and cons of guns versus blades.  
Castiel frowns and can’t help but glance at his own phone, resting on the table in all its dark, text-less glory. It stings just a little, to know that Dean didn’t reach out to him first, a tiny grain of salt over a slow bleeding papercut.  
He doesn’t have to ask Jack to show him the text because Jack is already shoving it under his nose, brows knotted in confusion.

**> Dean (RECEIVED 21:14)**  
**Hey kid, left fridge, bottom shelf, behind the takeaway, there’s 2 bottles left.**  
**Bring ‘em to my room and I’ll tell you where Sam hides the Little Mermaid DVD**

There’s a sigh just barely bubbling up Castiel’s throat when the phone buzzes again, shaky in Jack’s palm.

**> Dean (RECEIVED 21:14)**  
**Don’t tell Sam**

Castiel rolls his eyes and isn’t sure whether to laugh or be angry. He doesn’t get to decide because there’s a second buzz.

**> Dean (RECEIVED 21:15)**  
**Don’t tell Cas!**

He does get a little angry then, scoffing at the screen and clutching the phone in his fist as he marches towards Dean’s bedroom, Jack hot and sheepish on his heels.

He doesn’t even knock when he gets there.  
“Did you tell Jack to bring you beer,” he says, fingers still wrapped around the door handle as he swings it open.

Dean is sprawled on his bed, head hanging upside down, a hand caught under his shirt as he scratches his belly.  
He startles a little when seeing the pair of them suddenly invading his space, but he doesn’t look upset. Castiel breathes slow and can’t admit, even to himself, that seeing him again, whole and scruffy and more unguarded than usual, is filling him with a cool relief.  
“I ran out,” Dean simply says, flipping himself over on the bed, so he can sit up and face them directly. He swings his arm out, to gesture at the cluster of empty beer bottles littering his usually spotless desk, like that should be a sufficient explanation.  
The shirt he’s wearing rides down to cover his stomach again, and Castiel’s skin tingles a little with the disappointment at not being able to see that vulnerable little strip right between Dean’s bellybutton and the waistband of his pants.  
He has to clear his voice twice before speaking, his eyes rolling back up to find Dean’s again  
“Dean, that’s not-” he has to sigh at Dean’s dumbfounded expression “Why didn’t you just get it by yourself?”

Dean stiffens, shoulders a straight, weighted line, and Castiel feels the sting of having said the wrong thing immediately.  
“Maybe I didn’t feel like dealing with all our guests lookin’ at me like I’m the big bad winged freak,” he says, a rumble of a voice that rolls right over Castiel’s skin, makes him speechless for a moment.  
Dean is staring at him a little like he’s daring him to contradict him, pick a fight, mouth set in a tight line.

“Umm. I don’t mind getting the beer, Dean,” Jack says from over his shoulder, eyes a little wide, voice coated in eagerness.

“Guess I gotta ask your dad here for permission first,” Dean smirks, eyes refusing to back down from his snarky words.  
Castiel eyes him for a second, gets past the bow of his lips and the scruffy hinge of jaw, onto the dark bags under his eyes, the weary tremble in his voice, the way his fist is clenched around the blankets, thumb running back and forth like he needs the physical reassurance of it.

“I just- I really wanna know where Sam keeps the Little Mermaid,” Jack whispers into Castiel’s shoulder, failing every attempt at being sneaky

“Jack, Sam doesn’t have the DVD. Dean keeps them all in a box in his underwear drawer,” he says, arms crossing over his chest and eyes meeting Dean’s challenge.

“What- How do you-” Dean splutters, blood draining from his cheeks and then rising all the way back up to bathe his features in a deep blush. Castiel allows himself just a second to find it endearing.

“Is it true? Can I have it?” Jack says, eyeing the dresser, pushing into the room a little, not really reading the tension between the two of them.

Dean groans and runs a hand over his face, like he’s willing the embarrassment away.  
“Fine. Fine. I was just keeping them safe so Sam wouldn’t watch them every damn day,” he grumbles as he stands up and walks to the dresser.  
He hands Jack the whole box wordlessly, face all stoic. The redness still tinting the tips of ears betrays him and it makes Castiel smile a little.

“I’ll go get you the beer! Thank you so much!” Jack shouts, already sprinting down the hallway, clutching the box to his chest like it contains an actual treasure.

Suddenly they’re alone and the air seems thicker, a fog of all the things they’re supposed to sort out between the two of them piling right on top of their heads.  
“They’re not so bad, you know, those hunters” Castiel starts, because that’s an easy way out, it’s easier to ask Dean how he really is and risking his anger, easier than telling him there’s an ache in his chest that only dissipates when Dean is close and whole.

“I know, I just-” There’s a beat of silence as Dean looks for words he doesn’t seem to have. “I don’t have it in me to deal with their crap right now. I’ve got enough of my own, you know,” His hands pick at the frayed hem of his t-shirt and Castiel feels himself going a little tender on the inside.  
“Sam’s got it handled anyways. Big bearded chief now, ain’t he” he says, voice thickening in mockering when he calls his brother by his new title.  
His tongue clicks and he shakes his head a little in a half-aborted laugh, and Castiel just knows he’s about to suck in a breath and use it to ask for space, ask him to leave.  
He doesn’t want to, not yet

“What are you watching?” he asks instead, stepping fully into the room and sitting down, because Dean has told him one time too many that he looks creepy, standing all stiff in the doorway, with his coat on.

Dean seems taken aback, mouth falling open just a little in surprise.  
“Uh, I was’ gonna go through the classics. Freddie and Jason and David and the like” he says, recovering quickly as he faces the TV once more.

“Are we having a movie night in Dean’s room?” Jack’s voice floats through the ajar door and reaches them before he does, eyes all wide and hopeful, hands balancing the box full of DVDs and Dean's beer.

Dean lets out a groan “What does a man have to do to get some damn peace around here?”

“Oh it's okay, we'll just go then” Jack starts, backing out of the room so ruefully he might as well have an actual tail between his legs.

Castiel is rising up from his chair, ready to leave, when Dean speaks again, voice a little rough and little soft.

“No, kid I- uh, it's fine. It's fine, you guys just stay. Not watching a damn cartoon though. And no hogging the covers” Dean says the last part as he makes room for the both of them on his bed, bowed legs crossed so they can all fit. He only grumbles a little as he reaches for his beer, lips pressed against the glass to mask what Cas knows to be a smile.

So they sit, Dean drinks and he laughs and he looks like his soul isn’t weighed down with lead anymore. Jack only gets scared of all the blood and gore a couple times and gives Dean a chance to tease him as much as likes.  
It’s fun, it’s good, Castiel thinks, as Jack convinces Dean to put on a Disney movie next and Dean only grumbles about it for two minutes.  
Castiel meets Dean’s smiling eyes over Jack’s head as Ariel sings about wanting legs and when he touches his chest the bruise almost feels like it isn’t there anymore.  
He smiles back, and it stays on his lips until Dean’s head starts drooping back onto his pillow, all the way through pausing the movie and walking back to his own room.

The next morning he’s in the kitchen again for hours, debating over whether to make Dean breakfast or not, trying not to let bitterness take a hold of him when Dean again doesn’t show up.  
It’s a slow trickle of unknown people instead, crawling all over the place, treating it like it belongs to them. Castiel wants to welcome them just as much as he wants to fend them off, keep them away from Dean’s spaces. Away from the kitchen counter he keeps meticulously clean, now dotted with smears and crumbs everywhere; away from the spice rack he keeps fastidiously organized, jars now laying all over the place, without any kind of system. Dean would hate it and Castiel can’t really find it in himself to blame him for not wanting to come out of his room, the last space he has left that belongs to him only.  
He wants to go find him again, maybe ask to finish the movie about the mermaid because he’s kind of curious to see how it ends and hopes Ariel ends up being happy with or without the blue eyed prince.  
He decides to reorganize the spice rack in alphabetical order first, trying to buy himself some time, but he ends up with the cinnamon right next to the basil, and doesn’t know what Dean would think of that, so he gives up.

His phone is a welcome weight in his palm when he picks it up

_< Dean (SENT 14:07)_  
_Jack wants to know how the movie ends_

He types, and it’s technically a lie but it’s a small one. He wonders if he should be more explicit and ask Dean if they can come by, but he doesn’t have the time to decide because Dean texts him back right away

**> Dean, (RECEIVED 14:08)**  
**Only if you bring snacks**  
**Not watching this crap without food**

Castiel rolls his eyes to the ceiling and doesn’t fight the smile that pulls at the corners of his mouth.

**> Dean, (RECEIVED 14:09)**  
**Also beer**

And just like that he’s grabbing Jack and embarking on a shopping trip that involves way too many types of sugary treats and zero fruit and vegetables.  
It’s fun and he doesn’t even try to pretend he’s annoyed when his phone keeps pinging with Dean’s ridiculous requests and Jack makes a breathless, ecstatic face whenever they add another chocolate treat to their cart.  
The total is more than they usually spend on normal groceries, and he knows Sam would never buy most of the things they just did, but he can’t find it in himself to care. Not when they get back, arms full of all the snacks Dean could possibly want, and he welcomes them both with a smile that reaches all the way up to his eyes.  
Yeah, a few treats are fine, Castiel decides.

The days start slipping away from him then. Where they seemed so slow and thick at the beginning of the week, they feel too almost too short and too light now, the three of them piled in Dean’s room every night, working their way through both scary movies and Disney cartoons alike (for Jack’s sake only, Dean lies).  
Dean grows more and more relaxed as the days go by, lounging in sweatpants and t-shirts, his features melting into an excited smile every time he gets to introduce them to a new movie. He cheers all the bad guys on, smiling around mouthfuls of whatever snack he decides to munch on as people on the screen get mauled in extremely anatomically inaccurate ways. He hums deep and soft when cartoon characters sing dramatically about whatever situation they find themselves in.

Cas doesn’t always know what’s going on the screen, he’s more enticed with the sight of Dean, a rumpled and sleepy weight next to him.  
So he smiles whenever Dean laughs and he asks questions about the characters because he knows it pleases Dean to no end. When Dean falls asleep he slips his fingers through his hair and gives him dreams of driving the Impala through the winding roads of the Tuscany hillside, makes sure the memories from Michael's actions stay buried deep and inaccessible. It’s easy like that, to fall into a domesticity of sort, into a world contained within the four walls of Dean’s bedroom, with soft smiles and too many snacks and too loud movies.  
It aches in a fuzzy way, in his throat, in his eyes, to have him so close again, a warmth so good it almost feels like it’s going to be enough, if this all they ever are, if this is all they ever do together.

He lets it lull him through the week, lets the happiness bubble in his chest until he’s floating a little, body light. It feels good, good enough that he turns a blind eye when Dean grows restless and the bags under his eyes get darker. He pretends it’s funny when Dean refuses to run upstairs to grab himself food and tasks Jack with cooking him a frozen one instead.  
He pretends until he can’t anymore, until Sam tells him he hasn’t seen Dean in a full week and he’s worried about him, until Dean stops cleaning the snacks wrappers and lets them lay on the floor and snaps at Jack when he asks if they can re-watch Lilo and Stitch.

He puts those moments they shared somewhere safe inside himself, on top of the stack he’s been building through the years, piles and piles of snapshots of their shared lives, his most prized possession. He reminds himself that Dean needs to get out of there, needs to be excited and engaged again, that he’s at his best in the Impala, with a case on his hands.  
He helps Sam find one and he’s happy when Dean starts packing, vibrating in excitement as he rifles through his closet to find a “dorky” outfit. Cas doesn’t think Dean looks dorky in the checkered suit jacket he settles on, but he doesn’t say that. He just smiles and tells him he’ll take care of Jack and promises they won’t finish watching the All Saints Day series without him. Or rewatch Lilo and Stitch. Because it’s one of Dean’s favorites even if he’d never admit it, and it’s one of those little things that Castiel knows, that almost make it seem like he has enough of Dean already and there’s no point in wanting more.

He still does.

So Dean leaves his room and drives off towards his new case, the things Castiel wanted to say are still unsaid and now stale in his mouth. He swallows them down, tells himself it’s okay, Dean will be back, Dean always comes back, and then they’ll talk.

He makes another list.

**Author's Note:**

> Never written a coda before, and I guess this is sort of a weird one cause it technically takes place *right before* the episode rather than during? Still, it's what my mind pictured for the mysterious week we were only told about and I thought I'd actually write it out and see what happens!  
> Hope someone enjoyed it, even if it's not exactly my usual style. I just felt like taking a break from writing my long fic and this seemed like a cool idea.
> 
> Every kudos and comment is incredibly appreciated, I truly cherish each one and I'd LOVE to know what you guys thought of this one so please, let me know!!
> 
> ((The long fic is being written, slowly but surely, and will come out soon (in June? Maybe?). It's gonna be a silver foxes, slow burn, pining kind of thing so stay tuned if that sounds good! 😊 ))


End file.
